AB: Summarizes the major criticism that have appeared in the
literature and argues that values clarification should not be used
in the public schools or by such quasi-public agencies as Scouts,
Planned Parenthood, and 4-H.

Teaching Values in the Schools

Beneath the apparent freedom and tolerance of "values clarification"
programs lies a potential for intolerance and tyranny

By Richard A. Baer, Jr.

When groups of "concerned parents" first voiced objections to the
use of values clarification in the public schools, proponents of the
method typically brushed aside their complaints as little more than
reactionary right-wing response to educational innovation. After all,
Lewis Raths, Merrill Harmin, and Sidney Simon, who had originated
the method in the middle 1960's had explicitly stated that they were
interested not in teaching particular values, but only in clarifying
the student's own values. In contrast to earlier traditional
attempts to teach values by filling the students' minds with a
predetermined set of "true" or "correct" values, values
clarification, they maintained, was truly nonsectarian and
noncommittal about particular values. 1 Who would possibly object to
it unless they were covertly trying to promote their own rigid and
outdated value structures in the schools?

But the "concerned parents" and others did object, particularly
about the way in which the method defined all values as subjective,
personal and relative, and the way in which it threatened to violate
their children's and their own privacy rights. 2

Over the past six years a substantial body of scholarly criticism of
values clarification has arisen that in many ways corroborates and
reinforces at least some of the objections that have been raised by
parents. This literature has been written by liberals as well as
conservatives and by atheists as well as theists. Many school
administrators are not yet aware of the scope of this literature and
of the strength of its arguments. In part, this is because the
proponents of values clarification have either ignored these
criticisms or else responded to them only superficially and with
little evidence that they have understood specific objections raised.
It is for this reason that I shall summarize here the major
criticisms that have appeared in this scholarly literature and on
the basis of them argue that values clarification should not be used
in the public schools or by such quasi-public agencies as Scouts,
Planned Parenthood, and 4-H.

The claim to neutrality

Proponents of values clarification claim that the method does not
teach values but is essentially values-neutral. They say that it
focuses on clarifying the values held by individual students, not on
persuading the student to adhere to any particular set of
predetermined values.

Insofar as particular values, say in the realm of family or sexual
morality, are concerned, values clarification is partly (but only
partly) successful in making good on this claim. That is, the
authors do not appear consciously to push their own values on
students.

But what the proponents of the method have quite overlooked is that
at the deeper methodological level of what philosophers call
"meta-ethics" (that is, critical analysis and theory about the
nature of ethics or values as such), their claim to neutrality is
entirely misleading, for at this more basic level, the authors
simply assume that their own theory of values is correct. That is,
they assume that all values are personal, subjective, and relative
and cannot be known to be true or false, good or bad, right or wrong,
except by and for the individual directly involved. Values, they
assume, cannot in any objective sense be known to be true or right.
The hold that no good reasons (other than those that are strictly
personal) can be given for or against the correctness of a
particular value statement. A given value judgment, they say, cannot
be shown to be more or less worthy of acceptance by persons other
than the one making the value judgment, and , in the final analysis,
all values are individual and personal.

This position, however, is only one among several that could
reasonably be taken, and to present it as the truth about values
without any discussion or serious presentation of alternatives is
highly misleading. Despite its impression of neutrality, this
approach in actuality is strongly committed to one particular
position about the nature of values. The student is led to believe
that he or she has freedom to choose among meaningful alternatives,
which on one level is partly true. But at the critical meta-ethical
level, no choices or even mention of serious alternatives are
presented. In fact, whenever other positions are mentioned, they are
almost without exception presented in highly biased language. (I
shall return to this point later.)

Putting all of this together, it is fair to conclude that the
proponents of values clarification are indoctrinating students in
their position of ethical subjectivism and relativism. I use the
term "indoctrinate" in its pejorative sense and do so deliberately,
for the authors simply push their own view on their audience and
never even suggest that there are other alternatives preferred by
philosophers and other thoughtful and sensitive people. This
component of indoctrination in values clarification is both subtle
and powerful, and insofar as the authors make claims about ethical
neutrality, the theory fails completely. At the most basic level, it
does not do what it claims to do. 3

All values are personal, of course, in the sense that, to be fully
meaningful, they should be personally (although probably not always
consciously) embraced. On this level, it is good to be clear about
one's values and not to claim to value things that are in consistent.
Almost everyone will agree, then, that values are (at least to some
extent) personal in a psychological sense. But whether or not they
are personal (that is, subjective and relative) in a philosophical
sense is an entirely different question. Many philosophers,
theologians, and ethicists, for instance, hold, contrary to values
clarification, that values can be known to be true or false, right
or wrong, not just for the individual making the value claim but in
a more general sense. For them, values are not just relative and
subjective. As a part of or closely related to objective reality,
they can be known to be true or false, more or less worthy of
acceptance.

To take what is admittedly a rather extreme example, I share the
position of most ethicists that it is wrong for any human being just
for the hell of it. I would claim to know the truth of this value
judgment with greater certainty than I know, for instance, the
composition of the methane molecule or that E=mc2, both of which I
know primarily because I accept the integrity of the scientific
community and the trustworthiness of its published report, and not
because I have personally fully understood or verified these
particular knowledge claims. By contrast, I know the wrongness of
torture more immediately, for if anything in the realm of practical
living seems clear to me, if I am able to make any sense of all of
my life in community with other human beings, then this statement
must be true.

I am able to present far more convincing arguments why this value
claim about torture is worthy of acceptance than I am about most of
what I claim to know in the realm of science, history, economics, or
most other fields of knowledge. I have never asked my children's
opinion about the truth of this value claim and do not intend to do
so, just as I have never asked them their opinion about the law of
gravity or the statement that the world is round and not flat.
Rather, I teach them the truth of this value and expect them both to
believe it and to base their actions on it, just as I have taught
them the truth of the law of gravity and of the statements, "The
earth revolves around the sun," and "The sun is larger than the
moon."

To be sure, if they question my value assertion about torture, I
will try to clarify its meaning and will give them reasons for its
truth, just as I would if they said to me, "But the earth looks
flat," or if they said, "But if the earth is round, then people in
China would be standing upside down!" If they say to me, "But some
people don't agree with your value about torture, so how can you
claim it to be true for anyone but yourself? I will reply, "But
there are also some people who do not believe the earth is round or
that it revolves around the sun. That does not shake my confidence
in these statements, nor will it shake my confidence in this claim
about torture if some sadist or even some learned college professor
claims it not to be true."

The authors of values clarification have tended to see the only
viable alternative to subjectivism and relativism as that of rigid
authoritarianism with claims of absolute certainty. This is
unfortunate and only confuses the issue. The most fruitful
discussion is not about the claims of relativism against the claims
of absolutism, but rather whether values are entirely subjective and
relative, or whether they are in some sense objective (or refer
reliability to the world apart from the individual making the value
claim) and can with varying degrees of assurance be known to be true
or false, right or wrong. Is it possible to give good reasons for
the acceptance of particular value? Are some values more worthy of
acceptance than others?

I would claim to know very little about anything with absolute
certainty, whether in the realm of science or in the realm of values.
But that is not important. Functionally, I am not terribly concerned
about absolute certainty, but rather with the question, What degree
of confidence do I have in the truth of this particular scientific
statement or of this particular value claim? I seldom use the term
"certainty" when speaking of most of the more important knowledge
claims in life. But that does not leave me with the alternative of
no knowledge at all, and to imply that it does is to confuse the
issue.

It might be objected that the authors of values clarification have
the right to define values however they choose. In one sense they do,
but if they want to be part of the mainstream of the social and
philosophical discussion of values in our society, then their
definition must be open to criticism and must be close enough to
other widely understood meanings of the term to communicate meaning
fairly and honesty. Actually, insofar as values clarification simply
assumes the relativity and subjectivity of all values and ignores
the important distinction between moral and nonmoral values, it
tends to equate the term "values" with the term "likes" and
"dislikes." When all is said and done, values clarification presents
a theory of personal preferences and aversions. Rather than "Values
Clarification," it might quite legitimately be called "Likes and
Dislikes Clarification."

Assumptions about ethical relativism

Raths, Harmin, and Simon seem to be aware of at least some of the
criticism that has been made of values clarification regarding
ethical relativism. In this connection, their comments in the
Preface to the 1978 edition of Values and Teaching are worth quoting
at some length:

. . . One belief of ours, strongly emphasized, was that children
should be free to state their own interests, their own purposes and
aspirations, their own beliefs and attitudes, and many other
possible indicators of values. Some readers thought that we were
claiming to be value-free, and that our book was value-free. . .

We also expressed the idea that different groups of people might
have different values and that, where these were within the laws of
the country, all views should be open for discussion, examination,
possible affirmation, rejection, or doubt. In other words, people
should be free to differ in their value indicators, and their
positions should be respected. For this we were labeled ethical
relativists. In one interpretation, the label is correct: we do
believe that in the world today there is not one true religion, one
true morality, one true political constitution. But a second
interpretation does not describe our point of view: we do not
believe that any one belief, or purpose, or attitude is as good as
another. We too have preferences; we too have made choices; and
while we do not believe that our views are eternal, or that they
should be made universal, with some small modicum of doubt we do
believe they are to be preferred. 4

So far as I know, critics have not charged the authors of values
clarification with being value-free as individual persons. Indeed,
if anything, one of the complaints has been that their own
individual values and biases have far too much influenced both the
theory and practice of values clarification. Thus the authors'
comments here seem to miss the point. They were not labeled ethical
relativists because they personally believed that one value was as
good as another. Clearly, that is not the case. The charge of
relativism stems rather from the fact that the theory of values
clarification presents only a highly relativistic view of values.

To be sure, the authors as persons prefer some values to others.
Everyone does. But their method claims that values cannot be known
to be true or false, right or wrong , and that there is no truly
rational basis for preferring one value to another. In fact, one
does not need to believe that values are eternal or that they will
never change to believe that some values are true and some false.
The authors' response to their critics is thus beside the point. It
misses the most fundamental charge that critics have made against
values clarification (that is, that it simply assumes the truth of
ethical relativism) and gives the reader no evidence that they have
even understood the nature of the charge.

A telling example of the authors' confusion about values can be seen
from a passage in Values and Teaching that is found in both the 1966
and 1978 editions. It is taken from longer conversation the authors
have included to illustrate how a teacher can adhere to values
clarification theory and yet not permit dishonest behavior in the
classroom.

Ginger: Does that mean that we can decide for ourselves whether we
should be honest on tests here?

Teacher: No, that means that you can decide on the value. I
personally value honesty; and though you may choose to be dishonest,
I shall insist that we be honest on our tests here. . .

Ginger: But then how can we decide for ourselves? Aren't you telling
us what to value?

Teacher: Not exactly. I don't mean to tell you what you should value.
That's up to you . . . All of you who choose dishonesty as a value
may not practice it here. That's all I'm saying. 5

Kenneth Strike points out that the teacher here is in an absurd
position, which the authors do not seem to see. Strike writes:

The teacher is in this dilemma because he apparently accepts Raths'
view that values are just matters of opinion. He cannot, therefore,
be authoritative about them. He cannot claim that one ought to be
honest, only that he personally values honesty. It, of course,
follows that any attempt to enforce honesty is simply arbitrary and
unjustified. But the teacher wishes to enforce such a policy. He
tries to solve the problem by expressing the absurd view that it is
OK to compel others to act in accordance with one's personal values
so long as one does not seek to compel them to agree with one's
values. 6

As Strike points out, the authors leave us completely in the dark as
to why we should accept this strange view of tolerance. The author's
view seems hardly consistent with a sentence of their own found
later in the book in a section captioned "Blend Freedom and Safety":
"This does not mean that the teacher must be extremely permissive,
although it probably does rule out an arbitrary or autocratic
climate."

All of this points up a disturbing implication: underneath the
apparent freedom and tolerance of values clarification lies a
dimension, almost certainly unintended by the authors, of potential
intolerance and tyranny. When all is said and done, freedom,
tolerance, justice, and human dignity are not values that we can
know to be right and true or for which we can present valid
arguments or good reasons. They are simply choices some people make,
and values clarification theory in principle indicates no way for us
to be clear about whether they are better choices than such opposite
values as tyranny and intolerance. In the end, we are at the mercy
of individual selves, viewed as autonomous, as the final arbiters of
truth in the realm of values, with no possibility of appeal to good
reasons for the truth of statements about basic rights and
principles.

Raths, Harmin, and Simon make a feeble attempt to resolve some of
these difficulties when they write about values being "within the
laws of the country" and when they state that "the issues that
should be left to the child [for discussion and choice] are (1)
those that contain alternatives the consequences of which the child
is able to grasp to a reasonable extent and (2) those whose
alternatives are neither very distasteful nor dangerous so that any
choice can be tolerated." 7

But who is to say what is distasteful or dangerous? The authors give
us no help in deciding this important issue. For parents who
consider abortion to be murder, it certainly would be distasteful to
have their children discuss the rights and wrongs of abortion in
class. Similarly, try to imagine how Jewish parents would feel about
their children discussing the rights and wrongs of the German death
camps in class. And many parents would consider it dangerous for
their children (in terms of moral consequences) to have them
seriously discuss in school whether premarital intercourse is a good
or a bad practice.

Does the values clarification teacher claim some inside knowledge
about these questions? If not, why should the teacher's judgment
about them be preferred to the judgments of the parents? Most public
school teachers have had no formal training and can claim no special
competence in the field of ethics. Regarding the reference to values
"within the laws of the country," one would also want to ask: "Are
there then no situations where it would be morally correct to
disobey the laws of the country? Is there any legitimate basis for
civil disobedience?" But here again, values clarification offers no
help whatsoever. The theory utterly fails at such points as these.

Most of these issues are complex and quite beyond the ability of
elementary school students to understand. If public school
administrators are to protect the interests of their students and
defend the right of children not to be indoctrinated in one
particular philosophical position as the truth about the nature of
values, they must reexamine earlier commitments they may have made
to the use of values clarification. To fail to do so will be to lend
support to a form of manipulation and indoctrination that should not
be permitted in a pluralistic, democratic society.

Assumption about human nature and society

Not only does values clarification presuppose one particular view of
values to the exclusion of other views, but it also presupposes a
number of very specific views about human nature and society. Most
of these views are by no means obviously true, and some of them
stand in direct opposition to other widely held views on these basic
issues. The authors present no serious defense of their positions
but simply assume them to be true.

For instance, the authors apparently believe that value truth
resides within each individual and that, given enough time and
encouragement, it will finally manifest itself. (Thus, in a certain
sense, it is consistent to see the individual as the final arbiter
of value truth.) But again, this position is only one among many
that responsible ethicists have taken. It stands in sharp contrast
to an understanding of ethics based on natural law, to the Marxist
view of ethics, to the major views of the Judeo-Christian heritage,
and to others. Once again, I would ask: "In a pluralistic and
democratic society, how do the authors justify presenting their view
as the one proper position, particularly when they have presented no
significant discussion of alternatives?

Similarly, the authors simply assume that the individual is free to
make his or her own value choices in an open and rational manner.
Such a position can be defended, but it is important to note that
many outstanding thinkers in Western culture -- including Augustine,
Calvin, Pascal, Dostoevski, Marx, and Freud, to name but a few --
have taken quite a different position on this question. Augustine,
for example, understood true freedom to be life according to the
will of God. Anything less than this involves varying degrees of
slavery. When the Stoic philosophers of antiquity spoke of living
"according to Nature," they were expressing a similar view. Marx
viewed people as slaves to a money-capital economy, with liberation
coming only with a communist revolution and the eventual
introduction of a classless society. Freud worked with a very
different intellectual framework than either Augustine or Marx, but
he too seriously doubted that man was really free rationally to
direct his own life. Most individuals, according to Freud, are
slaves to various dark and only dimly understood dimensions of the
unconscious. Or, finally, one could point to Madison Avenue with its
powerful influence on our patterns of consumption or to the
pervasive influence of television, particularly on young and
impressionable minds. It is by no means obvious, then, that people
are genuinely free to make value choices. 8 But once again, Raths,
Harmin, and Simon simply assume their position to be correct one and
incorporate it into their theory with no discussion of alternatives.
Here, too, the advertised openness and neutrality of values
clarification turns out to be illusion, and, judged by its own
criteria, the theory fails.

Other criticism of values clarification

Numerous other criticism of values clarification have been explored
more fully elsewhere. For the sake of brevity, I will simply outline
them here.

The right to privacy. Values clarification threatens the right to
privacy of students and their families. Alan L. Lockwood has pointed
out that "teachers are not trained in the use of psychologically
probing strategies and, particularly in the case of younger children,
the reasonable assumption that students may be unaware of the
negative consequences of extensive self-disclosure." 9 To be sure,
the method includes the possibility of saying "I pass" when a
student does not want to respond to a particular question. But many
of the techniques are designed in such a fashion that it is highly
unlikely that the student will know ahead of time what kind of
information is being sought, and by the time this becomes clear, the
student may already have divulged more than he or she wishes. Also,
the presence of the teacher as an adult authority figure and
pressure from the peer group make it difficult for all but the most
self-confident students to pass as often as they might really want
to, for the method itself incorporates a pressure toward
self-disclosure.

Values clarification as psychotherapy. In another article, Lockwood
writes that "similarities between client-centered therapy and Values
Clarification are significant enough to conclude that Values
Clarification is, in essence, a form of client-centered therapy." 10
Lockwood's judgment is particularly significant in light of the fact
that many schools employ values clarification ot just in one or two
optional courses but also as a technique to be used in various
required courses. Using the power of the state of require students
to participate in what is, in effect, a form of psychotherapy has
ominous overtones indeed.

A threat to pluralism and a liberal democracy. Insofar as values
clarification understands values in highly relative and subjective
terms, it is not only problematic for many Christians, Jews, and
others, but it also threatens to undercut the philosophical basis of
a liberal democracy. If all values are finally matters of individual
choice and preference, then such values as tolerance of other
people's ideas, equality, and basic social justice are also matters
of personal choice and preference. Such a situation may be tolerable
so long as the majority remains strongly committed to such values,
but it is certainly not a position likely to give much comfort to
Jews, blacks, Mennonites, atheists, and other minorities, for under
even slightly different historical circumstances, majority opinion
might shift, and there would remain no legitimate appeal to the
truth of basic ethical principles and rights.

Bias against authority, traditional morality, and duty. One of the
most objectionable aspects of values clarification is its profound
bias against authority, traditional morality, and sense of duty and
self-sacrifice. According to Raths, Harmin, and Simon, traditional
teachers of morals do not teach; they "moralize," "preach,"
"indoctrinate," "manipulate," and so forth. Their positions are
"rigid," and "the idea of free inquiry, thoughtfulness, reason seems
to be lost." "If a student has not been taught to examine and weigh
his own values," says Simon and Polly deSherbinin, "he is prey to
the next fast-talking moralizer who comes down the road." 11
Unfortunately, this almost total lack of objectivity and fairness
toward other positions is characteristic of values clarification
literature.

Equally clear is its bias against a sense of duty or self-sacrifice
and toward-self-gratification. William J. Bennett and Edwin J.
Delattre point to the following values clarification "strategy,"
which is recommended for discussion with family or friends over
lunch or dinner:

Your husband or wife is a very attractive person. Your best friend
is very attracted to him or her. How would you want them to behave?

--- Maintain a clandestine relationship so you wouldn't know about
it

--- Be honest and accept the reality of the relationship

--- Proceed with a divorce. 12

Commenting on this exercise, Bennett and Delattre write:

Typically, the spouse and best friend are presented as having
desires they will eventually satisfy anyway; the student is offered
only choices that presuppose their relationship. All possibilities
for self-restraint, fidelity, regard for others, or respect for
mutual relationships and commitments are ignored.

Bennett and Delattre conclude that, besides assuming
self-gratification above all else, this and other exercises "offer
severely limited misleading options for conduct. Moreover, the
exercises are indifferent throughout to relevant facts - except
those that Simon wants the student to consider." 13

Values clarification as a "religious" position. The radical
relativism of values clarification represents something more than
one among a number of philosophical options. Insofar as it presents
the individual as the final arbiter of truth in the realm of values,
it becomes a kind of "religious" position in its own right, one that
conflicts with other important religious positions in our society.
Let me clarify what I mean. The statement, "God is the final arbiter
of truth in the realm of values," is a religious statement. "God is
not the final arbiter of truth in the realm of values" is also a
religious statement, albeit in negative form. This latter statement
is directly implied be values clarification, for insofar as it
presents the individual as the final arbiter of value truth, it
excludes God from this position.

Similarly, Biblical religion regards the love of God and the service
of one's fellow human beings as the highest goals of man. But values
clarification's emphasis on self-fulfillment and action on the basis
of one's own desires and preferences stands in direct conflict with
this religious value. In reference to human behavior, it presents
its own "religious" view of life, a view that centers in the
individual and his or her own self-fulfillment. Philosophically, the
author's view is a form of hedonism. Religiously, at least from the
perspective of Judaism, Christianity, or Islam, its unrestrained
emphasis on the individual self constitutes a form of idolatry.

Whether or not values clarification is correct in these estimates of
values and of human nature, its "religious" position is only one
among many, and it is intolerable in a society such as ours to have
the authors press it on a semicaptive audience of students in a
public school setting as the truth about values and human beings.
Such a procedure represents a gross violation of the doctrine of the
separation of church and state and is no more acceptable than it
would be for a group of Bible-believing Christians or radical
Marxists to indoctrinate students in their own particular views
about values and human nature.

Coercion to the mean. John S. Stewart has criticized values
clarification for a "a tendency toward coercion to the mean in many
activities." He argues that many of the values clarification
activities leave the students far too exposed to peer pressure from
the stronger and more popular students, particularly insofar as
students are encouraged publicly to affirm their values. As an
example, he points to a strategy called the "Values Continuum,"
which asks students to take positions on various issues where the
alternatives are presented on a continuum.

One of the exercises asks, "How do you feel about premarital sex?"
The end positions listed are Virginal Virginia (sometimes called
Gloves Gladys) and Mattress Millie. Virginal Virginia "wears white
gloves on every date," and Mattress Millie "wears white a mattress
strapped to her back." (The 1978 edition, perhaps in response to
parent criticism, has replaced Mattress Millie with "Wild-Oats
Winnie - Never passes up an opportunity.") Stewart questions whether
it is reasonable to expect students, especially the shy or insecure
ones, to take anything other than a middle-of-the-road position in
the face of such extremes. 14

Teaching values

If the above arguments are sound and the conclusion is accepted that
values clarification should not be used in public schools or by
quasi-public agencies, is it then necessary to give up the teaching
of values altogether? Not at all. Just how it should be done is
still an open question, but at least board outlines of acceptability
are already becoming clear.

The common distinction between public and private values makes it
possible for public schools to emphasize such basic values as
fairness, equality, tolerance, courtesy, honesty, and responsible
citizenship. The courts have certainly left open the way for
teaching such values as these, and few groups have objected to their
being included in the public school curriculum.

The U.S. Supreme Court has also left open the way for the public
schools to teach philosophy, religion, and ethics, so long as it is
done in an objective and nonpartisan manner. It is entirely
appropriate, in other words, for schools to expect students to
become familiar with the major value commitments and ethical
thinking that have informed Western culture, including some exposure
to classical Graeco-Roman thought on values, basic values of the
Judeo-Christian heritage, and such modern positions as those of
humanism and Marxism. The students would be expected to learn what
these various groups taught about the good life and about right and
wrong, but they would not be indoctrinated in any one position.
Teachers would be expected to be fair to positions not their own.

Moreover, in a world growing increasingly small, it would also make
sense for schools to expose students (as some schools are doing in
any case) to the ethical and religious teachings of non-Western
cultures.

Even though values clarification as a whole should be rejected for
use in public schools, there are aspects of the method that could be
used to advantage. The focus of the method on clarifying values can,
within definite limits, be advantageously used. It is indeed a
benefit for students to grow in clarity about what they value and to
become aware of inconsistencies in their value commitments and in
the relationship between their words and deeds. Moreover, virtually
all students would benefit from a higher degree of sensitivity on
the part of their teachers. Teachers need not operate in the lecture
mode all or even most of the time, but can focus more on trying to
understand the needs and interests of their individual students.
Clarifying and nondirective statements from the teacher can be
helpful in this connection. And finally, a nonjudgmental attitude on
the part of the teacher that focuses on the inherent worth of each
student is also critical for long-term success. Such an attitude
should (but often does not) find wide support in American society.

As students move into junior high and high school, they can be
taught not just value content, but the process of how valuing takes
place within different ethical, religious, political, and
philosophical traditions. For instance, it would be important for
anyone attempting to understand Judaism to know that ethics are
always intimately related to the divine covenant and that God's acts
of grace always precede the demands of morality. Similarly, to
understand Marxist ethics, it would be essential first to be
familiar with basic aspects of Marxist political ideology. Finally,
in the highest grades, students might be given case studies to
"resolve" as a humanist, a Marxist, a Christian, or others might
resolve them, or they might be asked to think through the issue in a
way that would be consistent with their own basic life commitments
and give reasons for their choices.